Roatan, Honduras- December 27

Last evening we ate at one of the special restaurants aboard the Mariner, the French cuisine Signatures. Every course was wonderful. Truly a delicious, tasty dinner was enjoy by all.

This morning we arrived and anchored in Mahogany Bay overlooking Roatan. The men lowering the lifeboats to be used as tenders were so loud that it woke me up. Jim thinks maybe the crew boat drill yesterday didn’t go quite right in the lifeboat lowering process and that was why the instructions were being yelled by many and very loudly. Men clamored all over the two boats checking connections and using power hoses to wash the deck and windows. The men on the top were very careful to hook themselves to a cable that surrounded the top deck lest they fall overboard.

Roatan and its two sister islands are surrounded by the second largest barrier reef in the world- just after the Great Barrier in Australia. Christopher Columbus in his fourth voyage (1502-1504) came to the islands as he visited the neighboring Bay Island of Guanaja. The pre-Columbian indigenous peoples of the Bay Islands are believed to be related to Paya, Maya, Lenca, or Jicaque, which were the cultures present on the mainland.

Throughout European colonial times , the Bay of Honduras attracted a diverse array of individual settlers, pirates, traders, and military forces engaged in various.

The majority of the permanent s economic activities and playing out political struggles between European powers, chiefly Britain and Spain.

More devastating for Native American communities was exposure to European infectious diseases to which they had no immunity, such as smallpox and measles. Diseases ran in epidemics and no indigenous peoples survived.

The majority of the permanent population of Roatan originated from the Cayman Islands near Jamaica. They arrived in 1830s shortly after Britain’s abolition of slavery in 1838. Caymanians were largely a seafaring culture and were familiar with the area from turtle fishing and other activities. Former Caymanian slaveholders were among the first to settle in the seaside locations throughout primarily western Roatan. Former slaves also migrated from the Cayman Islands, in larger numbers than planters, during the late 1830s and 1840s.

In the latter half of the 19^th century, the island populations grew steadily and established new settlements all over Roatan and the other islands. Settlers came from all over the world and played a part in shaping the cultural face of the island.  The islanders started a fruit trade industry which became the foundation for modern day fruit companies, the industry which gave Honduras the name “banana republic”.

Only about 40 miles from end to end, ribbon like Roatan is the most populous of the Bay Islands. Most villages are along the water’s edge with modest homes looking out to the ocean. The west side of the island has seen much development while the east side remains largely untouched by tourism.

The mahogany fire screen that we converted to our headboard for our bed came from this island in 2001 when we were on a cruise from Miami to Santiago through the Panama Canal with Tom and Carol Brown. Great memory of a fun trip.

Going to be another lazy day. Hopefully the balcony will be able to be enjoyed when the sun is on the other side of the ship. Tried sitting out there for a bit and the sun was too hot. BUT not complaining at all.